sense, of course: when any old cloak gets patched and then wet, when it begins to dry, any new patch sewn onto the old cloak will tear away. Jeshua also said that “No one pours new wine into old wine skins” (2:22–23). Christ had new things to say, refreshingly new sayings about many things, so he chose his disciples from among everyday workmen—fishermen, and even a tax collector—the sort of men who did not require him to contend with old, worn out cloaks, skins, and thought patterns. He breathed fresh ideas unencumbered by stale sayings.
The Pharisees remained unconvinced. They criticized Jeshua’s disciples for walking through the fields where they sometimes used their fingers to strip the heads of ripened wheat grain from their stalks and then eat the seeds. What’s more, the disciples did this on the Sabbath. This was something forbidden by law, the scribes insisted.
However, Jewish law did not forbid this. In Deuteronomy 23:25 we read, “When you go through your neighbor’s grainfield, you may pluck some of the ears with your hand . . .” though you weren’t allowed to take in hand a sickle to harvest them. “Trivia pursuit,” you say? Not exactly, for the scribes and Pharisees were scrupulous about observing the prescriptions of the law. Eating a neighbor’s grain, especially on the Sabbath, was an offense to their conservative sensibilities. Jeshua’s followers were liberals, not lawbreakers. They knew that plucking and eating grain while they walked with him through the fields were neither acts of thievery nor violations of the Sabbath law. Such simple acts were allowed by the Jewish Scriptures. The disciples knew this. Jeshua knew this. The scribes and Pharisees knew this.
Yet the Pharisees were still critical. So, Jeshua recalled for his critics how David didn’t hesitate to request the “Show Breads” in a synagogue, which only priests were allowed to eat. David had asked that they be given to his men who were hungry. At that time David and his men were fleeing for their lives from David’s rebellious son. The priest in charge of the Show Breads didn’t hesitate to give David’s men the breads to eat even though it was something forbidden by the law. “The Sabbath was made for man,” Jeshua said to his critics, “not men for the Sabbath!” Jeshua considered hunger to be a good enough reason to allow minor infractions of the law, and this saying of Jeshua has been often quoted by Christians.
Doesn’t all of the above make clear that Jeshua came so that we might have life, and have it in greater abundance? Resting on the Sabbath is ordinarily needed, it is true, in order for people to enjoy life. But when other things came up that called for exceptions to a rule, Jeshua was all for a liberal interpretation of the law. This principle was also emphasized by John the Evangelist in his account of the good news. There are lessons in the sayings of Jeshua that we often take for granted. Yet life today would be different without them. How radical they must have seemed to some at the time when he first said them.
The healings and sayings of Jeshua cited in this chapter illustrate another important insight: Christ’s healings were a sign that the Messianic age had dawned. Wilfrid Harrington notes this in his book titled Mark. Harrington first reminds us of the words of Isaiah 61:1–2: “The spirit of the Lord is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me; he has sent me to bring glad tidings to the lowly, to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to captives and release to prisoners; to announce a year of favor from the Lord and a day of vindication by our God, to comfort all who mourn.” As Harrington comments: “Against this background, Jesus’ reference to himself as ‘physician’ implies more than a proverbial justification of his conduct: if he eats with sinners it is because the sick need a physician . . .” (Mark, p.32).
What are our needs that Jeshua can fulfill? He came to help us!
Chapter 3
This chapter of Mark begins with a healing that Jeshua performed on the Sabbath. His critics, the Pharisees, sat in the synagogue waiting to see what Jeshua would do for a man with a withered hand. (Had he been planted there, perhaps just to test Jeshua?) Upon entering the synagogue, Jeshua saw the man and sized up the situation. As for his critics, he saw that they weren’t concerned about the plight of the poor man. They were just hoping to witness Jeshua doing something on the Sabbath that wasn’t allowed.
Confronting the Pharisees, Jeshua asked a few questions that had implications back to creation itself. What was the purpose of the Sabbath? he asked. Keeping it holy, as the Creator commanded Moses? Surely. But what did this mean? Jeshua interpreted the Sabbath to be a gift that should be cherished as a way of enhancing life as well as promoting the worship of God. By contrast, sad to say, his critics viewed the Sabbath as a sacred rule that didn’t allow exceptions. The Sabbath was a binding law that must be observed meticulously. In other words, their interpretation of Sabbath had made it into a burden rather than a blessing.
Healing in those days was considered to be the province of professional healers. Today we call these people doctors, medics, or nurses. Jeshua, though he was not a so-called professional healer, considered his ability to heal a gift, an act of mercy, of kindness—something good. In no way did he consider his abilities to be incompatible with his mission or the Sabbath rest intended by the Creator. In his view the Sabbath law was something that God intended to assure us a welcome rest. The Sabbath was not intended to be something that restricted good works. Jeshua, in John’s version of the good news (10:10), would sum up his abilities with these words: “I came so that they may have life and have it more abundantly.” In Mark’s version of the good news, Jeshua considered his abilities to be simply a good thing. So he called the man with the withered hand to come up front. Then he challenged his critics in front of them: “Is it lawful to do good on the Sabbath rather than to do evil? To save a life rather than to destroy it?” (Mark 3:4).
Their response was silence. In no way could any of them in the synagogue deny those were two lawful options. Yet Jeshua’s critics harbored dour thoughts in their hearts, holding tightly to their position that the Sabbath was inviolable. They hoped Jeshua would say or do something against the Sabbath rest, for which they could take him to court. They thought that perhaps they could nail Jeshua for healing on the Sabbath. So they gave no acknowledgment that healing a man could be a good thing, an act of kindness, of mercy, even on the Sabbath.
Jeshua looked around at the faces of his critics and glared. Deeply grieved by his critics’ hardness of heart and lack of compassion for the handicapped one in their midst, Jeshua then said to the man, “Stretch out your hand!” The man did so, and his hand was healed instantly. The majority of people in the congregation undoubtedly rejoiced and praised God, just as they had done when Jeshua healed the paralytic who had been lowered before him from the ceiling of the house. But Jeshua’s act of compassion in the synagogue must have been a mighty blow to the Pharisees! This much is evident from their immediate rise and departure from the synagogue.
We then learn from Mark’s account that the Pharisees went at once to their opponents, the Herodians, who were collaborators with the Romans. Instead of opposing the Herodians for collaborating with the occupying powers as they had previously done, the Pharisees joined forces with the Herodians against Jeshua. The Pharisees hated Jeshua so much that they were willing to make a deal with their opponents to do away with him. The battle lines in this war had formed—an omen for Jeshua about what lay ahead for him, and for those who would follow him—for Jeshua’s enemies then planned to have him put to death.
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